Within two years of the 1876 invention of telephone, a personal video phone known as a “telephonoscope” was conceptualized and popularized in the press. Such a device, it was asserted, would allow merchants to transmit pictures of their wares to customers in distant cities.
Alexander Graham Bell himself went on to predict that: “ . . . the day would come when the man at the telephone would be able to see the distant person to whom he was speaking.” Yet, for most of us, visual telephony is far from an everyday experience some 130 years later.
The technology emerged by the 1920's that allowed television to be deployed. Inspired by radio and constrained by cost, television emerged as the one-to-many broadcast system we know today.
Video conferencing systems are now available as IP-based systems but have mostly been displaced by Internet meeting services like Cisco WebEx, GoToMeeting, and Fuze Meeting. Video services like Skype, Facetime, and other visual services have been deployed to provide visual interaction and/or desktop sharing on a one-to-many and one-to-one basis.
All of these services bypass the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) as they are initiated and conducted by means of the IP-based network. Sessions are initiated either by entering an Internet address, clicking a link, or by the use of a proxy that connects two users from point to point over IP-based network.
Most telephone applications are limited to voice and touchtone telephony communications. When dynamic, interactive visual content is desired in real time, consumers use the Internet, where visual information is robust but neither synchronized to the automated telephone application nor visible to a sales agent.
A typical sales inquiry typically includes a phone call where the agent verbally instructs the hapless consumer to click to the relevant section of the merchants website to “see” the product and features being discussed. Or, if the voice call is initiated by the consumer, the consumer is left to describe where they are in the merchant's website so the agent may catch up and follow along. Either approach may become a frustrating experience
Therefore, there remains a need to overcome one or more of the limitations in the above-described, existing art. The discussion of the background to the invention included herein is included to explain the context of the invention. This is not to be taken as an admission that any of the material referred to was published, known or part of the common general knowledge as at the priority date of the claims.
                It will be recognized that some or all of the Figures are schematic representations for purposes of illustration and do not necessarily depict the actual relative sizes or locations of the elements shown. The Figures are provided for the purpose of illustrating one or more embodiments of the invention with the explicit understanding that they will not be used to limit the scope or the meaning of the claims.        